


[UNFINISHED PILOT] Poltergeists for Sidekicks

by PetrelPitri



Series: a modern dreamon hunters au [1]
Category: Minecraft (Video Game), Video Blogging RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe - Ghost Hunters, Alternate Universe - Urban Fantasy, Angst, Descriptions of Ruined Houses, Dreamon Hunters, Fire, Gen, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Memory Loss, Not Beta Read, Past Character Death, Suspense, Swearing, no beta we die like wilbur, tubbo goes ghost hunting and comes back with a friend
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-11-23
Updated: 2020-11-27
Packaged: 2021-03-10 01:34:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,921
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27635507
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PetrelPitri/pseuds/PetrelPitri
Summary: "Hello? Wilbur Soot?"The spirit box at Tubbo's feet rattled, static pouring through the speakers as the ghost spoke.  The noise was a garbled mess but a few clear words slipped out."-fuck-nt--bur"Tubbo chuckled nervously, so the temperamental ghost knew how to swear... Fantastic.---Tubbo, at Fundy's insistence, goes ghost hunting after a stressful dreamon case.  All his sources lead to the former, now burnt down, residence of one Mr. Wilbur Soot.
Relationships: Floris | Fundy & Toby Smith | Tubbo, No Romantic Relationship(s), Toby Smith | Tubbo & TommyInnit, Wilbur Soot & TommyInnit, none - no shipping real people here
Series: a modern dreamon hunters au [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2021578
Comments: 29
Kudos: 281





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Hello! This is my first work on AO3 (and possibly ever) so please tell me how it goes. There is a bigger AU and narrative around this story and if people like it, I'll write more. Feedback is welcome!

_“Come on, you need to get outta the house!”_

_“Nnno, I’m fine here.”_

_“You’ve literally just been sitting at your desk rearranging dreamon sightings, Tubbo. Go outside and do something.”_

_“Like what?”_

_“Uhhhh, ghost hunting?”_

_“... Like as a pastime?”_

_“Yeah,”_

_“You want me to go ghost hunting alone?”_

_“Ehhhhhhh, you’re like a pro at this supernatural stuff. I’m sure you’ll be fine.”_

* * *

The long-dead inferno had settled into the very bones of the house at the end of the cul de sac; soot, ash, and wheezing smoke soaking into the wood until it blackened under the weight of the fire’s dying breath. In the afternoon light, the house seemed to curl into itself as if sagging under the weight of some great tragedy.

The walls had peeled away in tense coils from the heat, exposing blackened inner wood, as the empty, sagging, barely held-together frames gave away to yawning darkness. Old scorched belongings scattered about the overgrown lawn in the twisted imitation of a garden fence, stuck where they have been thrown out six years ago: melted dinner chairs rose jagged from the hollow chest of collapsed bookshelves, melted pots and pans finding roost in the wheels of an eroded bike, and a once-coveted, now soot-stained, guitar lay covered in weeds. 

As Tubbo peered into the smoky skeleton from just beyond the fence-line, an uneasy shiver crawled down his back, something even the comfort of a borrowed jacket could not keep out. But the heavy weight in the air was a good sign to the young investigator; negative energy was usually indicative of a restless spirit. 

He took this down in the notebook that he had bright with him, clutching it close to his chest like a talisman, as if the small book could somehow fend off the chill. Shuffling past the messy notes and an assortment of cut-out pictures-blurry captures of moving nightmares, spectral wraiths, and of all sorts of peculiar things- he checked off the small boxes under ‘ _bad vibes, man’_ and ‘ _spooky fucking place’._

Thank god Fundy had made a checkable list beforehand. Tubbo didn’t want to stay outside the rickety old house re-reading his own writing any longer than he had to. From here, gazing up into the window frames, he felt the distinct prickle of being watched.

* * *

Stepping into the burnt doorway wasn’t any better than outside. The watchful eyes hadn’t gone away. Tubbo hummed under his breath, a small nervous habit he had picked up from many sleepless nights tracking eerie smiling monsters with Fundy. He picked his way inside past the smokey rubble, definitely getting ash smeared all over his palms and shins.

The room he was in looked to be the kitchen. But it was mostly untouched from fire… Huh.

In the article Tubbo had cut out from the stash of old newspapers back at their base of operations, it reported that the fire had started in the kitchen from a gas leak. From there, the fumes had risen to consume the whole building and eventually, the unfortunate resident Mr. Wilbur Soot.

However, the fire damage that coated the walls hadn’t reached the inside of the room, seeming to stop before reaching the ground floor. Tubbo traced his fingers against the dusty countertop, carefully checking the untarnished burners of the stove and rotting wood cabinet. Nothing was burnt. It was all… fine?

Nerves mounting, the young hunter re-read the article taped in his notebook again. 

If the fire hadn’t come from the kitchen like the news swore it did then where had it come from? 

And why hadn’t anyone noticed?

* * *

The cluttered living room was much the same, untouched by the fire with the exception being the ash-blackened edges of the ceiling from the floor above. 

The frail afternoon light shone in through the cracks in the walls, illuminating the rather impressive mess, still cluttered even after most had been eaten by the weather and wear of time. Everything about the mess was frantic: rusted soda cans and wine bottles empty of their contents lay piled together in a clutter from where they hadn’t been taken out and the faceless spines of what were formerly books had been left open on flat surfaces for the moths to chew. Even the couch had been moved aside, a sad shark plushie cast to the floor between the wall and the leg, it’s retrieval forgotten and left to rot. 

It was a morbid scene for sure, the untouched remnants of a life cut short straight in the middle. It was akin to a war ended in one fiery swoop, every project and plan left where it stood as the ground crumbled.

The thing that caught his attention, however, was the far wall lacking any window frames.

Between the dusty guitar case and shredded remains of sheet music, lay an overturned corkboard left in disarray. Tubbo went to turn it back over in curiosity, waving off his conscious’ Fundy-voice barking at him, nagging despite the older hunter being the more inexperienced of the two, _“Please don’t touch anything in ghost spots, dude. Those creepy spirits will get royally pissed if you move their shit.”_

Tubbo slowly lifted the board with care as not to give himself splinters, letting the nesting beetles scurry out from the bottom. He paused politely, waiting for any sign of an angry spirit. But nothing happened, the house remained quiet. He exhaled a breath of relief. He peered under the rotting wood and stopped in surprise.

The corkboard was completely covered in writing.

Not just writing: diagrams, and names, and oh god, Tubbo hoped those were just dark coffee stains.

String hung haphazardly off the pins, crossing over and under and over one another in some sort of spider’s web. Two names; he couldn’t make out were written on repeat everywhere, pinned with weathered, barely legible notes: 

_“-eath by shad- / phil. missing fo-- months / she can’t kn-, niki can’t- / only chance, take it? / --’t trust him, DON’T TR-ST HIM / un-- symp-- y / b-rn it do-- to ma----eal / safe. they’ll be saf- / --mmy--be okay”_

And at the center of it, like the eye of a storm, a portrayal of melting ram’s head glared back, inky flesh barely hanging onto the bones in its gorey madness. The paper stank of wood smoke, but sat eerily untouched by the march of time. All around it, scratches scored the visible cork surface; tallies, tick marks, and carved symbols.

Despite the insanity of it all, Tubbo recognized the symbols and he most definitely recognized the skull from the weird paranormal books he kept in a trunk under his bed. 

“What did you do, Mr. Soot?” Tubbo mumbled to himself, taking snaps of the demonic tongues with his little hand-held camera for analysis later under better lighting. 

The spotless kitchen made sense now. This was occult work, not any natural fire. Man, he had a lot of research to do when he got home. As he stepped back, mind reeling-

 _SLAM!_ ** _SLAM!_** **_SLAM!_**

Several doors, somewhere in the murky black of upstairs, had shut at once in a thunderous tandem causing small bits of soot to float down from the ceiling. 

The boy scrambled for his EMF reader, thrusting it out into the yawing interior shakily like an amateur's fencing sword. The device only remained blinking at two but any fears of this place being a spirit’s roost hadn’t abated. It was clear now.

Tubbo wasn’t alone in the house.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Our boy finally goes upstairs. Good for you Tubbo, get that ghost.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello! Chapter 2 is here!! Sorry for the bit of a wait, my updating schedule is a bit sporadic due to schooling alongside general writing things. 
> 
> Anyways, as per usual, tell me how it went! Anything you guys enjoyed? Anything I should work on? Let me know! 
> 
> Comments are always welcome and they make my brain do that happy juice thing.

Now, Tubbo was a lot smarter than most gave him credit for. 

When he and Fundy had taken down the beast, the hunting community assumed the older of the pair, who was incredibly smart in his own right, had figured out the methodology. It was probably because it’s objectively hard to take a kid wearing an oversized bee-striped hoodie seriously much less accept he was currently the leading expert on the elusive dreamon.

But it was Tubbo who had spent countless hours painstakingly reading and re-reading texts and making a map of every photo taken where other hunters had given up. He found the iron pot eating away at thick black blood splatters and the country coops’ eggs smashed into mush in the wake of the rampage. He’d put two and two together on the method behind a dreamon’s madness. 

Fundy had bravely baited Dream into the trap, risking life and limb to just get the possessed man to say those few words. And yet, it had been the boy in a bee hoodie who had set the snare, spell, and song.

Tubbo knew his _‘ghost shit’_ , hunting community be damned.

He knew with confidence that adventuring up the dark, rotting staircase he was peering into was not safe or even a decidedly good idea. 

Everything before this had been standard ghost procedure: investigation, agitation, and a mad dash outside once the identity was confirmed. But now Tubbo, with the threat of an _actual_ supernatural case on his hands, needed to find out the truth. 

Wilbur Soot had been dabbling in the occult. 

Demonic invention bent spirits into nightmarish shadows of their former selves. If the spirit trapped in this house was Wilbur, who knows what that mess downstairs could have turned him into. 

He needed to find out what was up there and document it in the name of the hunting community. 

But most of all, he needed to be _careful_. 

* * *

In fact, he was so very careful of hypothetical what-ifs and could-bes that he almost went crashing straight through the stairboards.

On the way up, the stairs had looked questionable but good enough for a careful scramble to the upper floors. Sure, there were little creaks but nothing worryingly loud to warrant putting in the effort to find an alternative route. But just as he reached mid-way, the house apparently decided structural integrity wasn't important anyways. 

Tubbo let out an embarrassingly loud yelp when he felt the step creak and give way underneath his feet, fumbling hands scrabbling uselessly at the broken rails. He felt himself drop down, down, down and all his trusty brain could send his way was a very helpful _‘ah, this is going to suck’_.

So after speedrunning through all five stages of grief in a matter of milliseconds, one could imagine Tubbo’s surprise when freezing hands clamped down on his shoulders.

At the touch, the boy was suddenly out of his own mind. Everything faded to white noise like Tubbo’s entire being had been shoved to the very back of his own throat. And in the place where he had been, there was an overpowering urge to _scream_

and _yell_

and to 

_make_

_them_

_listen._

Then _snap!_ Tubbo was back in his own body, the front half of his form colliding painfully against the upper part of the staircase.

He was reeling from the mental assault he had just gotten and his face throbbed from where he had bounced off the edge of the stairs. However, he was no longer at risk of falling backward into the gloomy closet space. Scrambling to his hands and knees using the rush of adrenaline in his system, the boy clawed upwards through the ashy residue. He didn’t stop until he was absolutely sure the floor wasn’t going to give out again. Tubbo collapsed in a heap at the top, taking frantic gulps of wood-smoke air.

Over the ringing of his ears and adrenaline rush and stupid wood splinters he definitely had all over his face, he could hear the piercing shriek of the EMF reader in his front pocket. 

The light was flashing at a five.

Then, after a short moment, the level slowly teetered back down to two as if the ghost was backing away. Everything sank back into that suffocating silence once more. 

Tubbo just lay there, trying to process what the fuck just happened.

_Did… Did he just get pushed by a ghost?_

He did, didn’t he. 

And they felt _mad_ …

...

But at least he wasn’t lying in the middle of the sharp, far down wooden wreck that once was the closet space, right?

“Thank you?” he said nervously into the dark hallway.

There was no response.

* * *

If he wasn’t shaken by the maniac corkboard downstairs before, he definitely was now. _‘What is wrong with this house?’_

Slowly, Tubbo picked himself off the floor and patted down his belongings. The EMF reader was still in his front pocket, the spirit box was still on his hip with all his other tools and thankfully the only thing that fell out, his notebook, was easy to retrieve from the edge of hole. But his favorite hoodie was ruined now, his overalls too. Even the lovely pair of gloves his sister had bought him were coated in a crusty film. 

But it would be okay. _‘Deep breaths, man.’_

He would be alright.

And he repeated that mantra over and over again under his breath as he warily crept through the top floor. 

Up here the watched feeling from outside was so much worse. Every doorway felt haunted here in the dark so thick that he had to keep his torch on. He could feel eyes burning into his back and when he turned there was nothing there but the smoky walls. The damn thing probably was following him.

That was fine, that was going to happen, it’s a haunted spot after all. That wasn’t the issue.

The issue was Tubbo kept _hearing things_. 

In his experience, normal restless spirits never made sounds on their own. Moving things around, sure, but never actual direct whispers. Older hunters told him they were voiceless because intent was the backbone of clinging to the mortal coil. If there wasn’t a strong will behind it, words would never get through without the help of something like a spirit box. However, this ghost was audible without any of it.

It was almost like hearing someone mumbling through a wall. He would enter a room and get little mumbles, once even the mangled imitation of a laugh. But nothing clear, not that he needed it to be in order to be freaked the fuck out. 

His heartbeat was drumming in his ears now. He crept from room to room, the voice and eyes seemingly always around the corner.

Why was it following him? 

Was it because he was in the house? 

_What did it want from him?_

Luckily for his ever strained nerves, two of the rooms were empty of anything paranormal. The first had been Wilbur’s personal room, as evidenced by the general clutter that matched the living room downstairs like crumpled music binders and the odd weird trinket. It was harder to discern anything notable in here as the close proximity to the fire had rendered everything faceless. 

The second room looked to be a guest room with a large frame bed pushed up against the sidewall. It was almost completely empty save for some old photos left on the dresser and a wardrobe with the remains of an odd moth-eaten red cloak inside. The young hunter got the distinct feeling the room had fallen to disuse long before the disaster. It felt… sad. 

Interestingly, the voice hushed as he traced his hands over murky photos. The several figures were barely visible in them and others had completely been ruined by the melting glass. Curious, Tubbo picked up one of the less-damaged frames and gently undid the backing to slide the photo out. 

It was a photo of three people at night, backlight by a bar’s blurred neon lights. 

One of them he recognized as the Wilbur Soot, tired brown eyes from the newspaper article looking so much more alive. He was slung over an older man in a striped green-and-white hat who was laughing at something. And to their right, barely leaning out of the frame was a blur of long vibrantly pink hair. 

The back of the photo read: _Sleepy Bois Inc. Karaoke Night :)_

 _Ah._ Tubbo gently laid the photo between the pages of his book, careful not to tear it. This felt like intruding into something he wasn’t a part of. It was probably a deeply personal thing, but evidence was evidence in the ghost hunting business. Maybe one day he could track down those two in the photo and ask them their side of things.

He quietly left the room, not wanting to overstep more than he had, and moved on. After all, everything had been relegated to the final room, the office.

* * *

The last room must have been where the fire had begun all those years ago, the whole area was black with ash. Dark streaks spreading like a starburst from the center of the floor and the surrounding walls had crumbled in on themselves. The afternoon light shone down through cracks in the ceiling from where tiles had burned away, brightening the interior. With all the gaps Tubbo could see right outside to the road and the surrounding treeline.

In fact, he could see exactly where he had been standing before he came in.

Wait.

_Oh._

Well, moving on from that unnerving fact _._

This room’s contents were messy almost mirroring the living room downstairs. The middle was empty and every piece of melted furniture had been pushed to a wall to make room. The only things remotely intact had been a CD display case now containing a melted slag dump and the barely standing scorched desk.

The watched feeling settled back down onto Tubbo’s shoulders like a heavy cloak. Only this time, instead of being vaguely uncomfortable, the feeling was so thick it was almost tangible. He could feel it clogging the back of his throat, pressing down on his tongue, and incessantly prodding at his temple. He shook his head, trying to clear it.

Then something faintly brushed past his shoulder.

Right in the middle of the empty room. 

Tubbo froze.

The ghost was here. _It was right next to him._

* * *

Figuring this would be the best chance to try and get answers with the ghost _right fucking there_ , he very slowly retrieved the spirit box from his belt. The entire time he kept his gaze locked on the floorboards at his feet. Looking at paranormal entities directly in the eyes was never a good idea, some things were never meant for human eyes after all. Stories passed around told of victims driven mad and hunters disappearing with vacant expressions in the dead of night after fateful encounters. Tubbo was not going to try his luck today with whatever twisted thing might be lurking in this house. Especially with it circling so close by.

With shaking hands, Tubbo lay the device on the ground and turned it on with a click.

The boy in the bee hoodie paused-wetting his chapped lips nervously-and considered his next move. Perhaps, calling the name would bring the spirit forward more presently? He didn’t have any better sources of information at the moment. So that’s just what he did, wincing at the nerve-wracked voice crack in the middle.

"Hello? Wilbur Soot?”

The cold feeling at Tubbo’s shoulder shifted as the spirit box at Tubbo's feet rattled. Static pouring through the speakers as the ghost spoke. The noise was a garbled mess but a few clear words slipped out.

_"-fuck-nt--bur"_

Tubbo chuckled nervously, a tad bit hysterical, so the temperamental ghost knew how to swear... Fantastic.

“Are you,” he paused to take a deep breath of the stuffy air, trying to regain a bit of composure. He repeated, more steel in his voice this time: “Wilbur Soot, are you here?” 

It was silent for a moment and then the atmosphere shifted. Tubbo could hear the creak of footsteps as _something_ circled him. His heart was practically rioting in his chest at this point and the steps drew ever closer.

 _“---look--- up--”_ the box rasped.

Okay, he was most definitely not going to fucking do that. 

As he kept his gaze rooted firmly to the floor, pressure began to build up behind the hunter’s eyes. The terror was back again, compressing in his chest like a fireball and making it burn with the tension of keeping it in. The foreign feeling of rage thundered against the walls of his skull, _wanting something_.

_It wanted-_

_He wanted-_

No, wait that wasn’t right. That wasn’t Tubbo’s own thoughts. Everything was buzzing and a choking feeling rose up in his throat. He mentally scrambled for anything that would help but there was nothing. This was bad, this was so very fucking bad. 

He was in deep, deep shit.

It was then, in the midst of panic, that Tubbo had spotted it. On the floor in front of him, there was a hidden compartment. The flames had carved little peepholes into the wood and exposed the underneath to the light. In the nest of wood ash, almost invisible, there sat the dull gleam of an iron box the size of a glasses’ case.

As soon as his eyes locked on it, things grew exponentially worse. It was like everything was screaming at once: his ears, chest, and brain were all rattling in tandem. They were screaming for him to get that box and open it. _He needed to open that box._

He furiously tore open the wood, getting ashy splinters all over himself in the process, and grabbed at the box, tugging it out right out of its hiding place with a thud.

He fumbled for the hinge on it, almost wilting under the burning eyes on him. Everything was just too loud, he could hardly even hear himself think anymore. Was he thinking? _Was he even himself?_

With a victorious clang, the lid fell away and suddenly everything...

Everything stopped. 

Like someone had just flicked a light switch, every feeling from the pressure in his mind to the ambient feeling of being watched dissipated as if they had never existed. Tubbo could hear himself again. Mystified, he glanced down at the key to it all. 

In the box, nestled in newspaper balls, there lay a small brass spyglass. It was old, the brass having long been tarnished, leather frayed, and wooden parts worn down smooth. It was a rather unremarkable little thing. The only thing of note was the little engraved words on the side. The script was blocky and amateurish where it had been cut-out by hand, it read: 

_‘For all the adventures to come!_

_To T.I., from Deo.’_

_‘This was an anchor point,’_ Tubbo realized, this is where the ghost had tethered itself. But why would a ghost want someone to find it’s anchor? All it took to banish the spirit was to chuck this little thing straight into a blaze and _poof!_ Why would they- 

Oh. The box. It was made of iron, it made sense.

They had been trapped in here.

With that, Tubbo’s head snapped up to look right at the ghost for the first time and he was surprised.

The ghost wasn’t one Mr. Wilbur Soot like he had been expecting. 

Instead, it was a boy in Victorian work clothes.

He looked to be about Tubbo’s age; tall and lanky with the worst posture he’d ever seen. From his mouth dripped a small rivulet of blood running down his chin into the collar of his shirt. 

Noticing his gaze, the boy gave him a shit-eating grin, showing off red-stained teeth. Tubbo felt his stomach roll a bit at the sight as the ghost cheerfully shouted to him,

“Took you long enough, big man!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ah ha! A twist! Or maybe you saw it coming from the tags, who knows :)


End file.
